Aphenglow approached and looked down into the basin. Layered across its bottom were geographic features and strange symbols that represented the whole of the Four Lands and some places beyond. Anyone unfamiliar with Druid lore would not have been able to recognize what they were looking at; only a Druid could read the scrye waters. Grianne Ohmsford had built it that way using her considerable magic, back in the infancy of her rule as Ard Rhys, when she had been beset by enemies and disbelievers on every side and had felt keenly the need to monitor their uses of magic from afar.

If Bombax had used his magic at any time over the past few days, the scrye waters should reveal when and where and measure the potency of the use.

The scrye shimmered slightly as she passed her hands across its surface. She was careful not to touch the waters, allowing herself instead to trace their swirling patterns in the air above. There were no discernible disturbances. She took her time, reading them carefully, focusing first on the Borderlands and then allowing her search to radiate outward to the other lands, one after the other. She felt herself merge with the movement of the waters, traveling as they did, cutting across the lines of power that encircled the world, tracking each to places near and far.

Only once did she sense something. Far out in the wasteland beyond the wall of the Breakline, in country where almost nothing lived, she encountered a disturbance unlike anything she had come across before. She lingered on it a moment, but it was brief and gone almost as quickly as it had come. She was able to tell that it had happened before but could not determine if it had produced any consequences.

In any case, it had nothing to do with Bombax.

She lifted her hands away and stood looking at the scrye waters in what amounted to an admission of defeat. There was no sign of Bombax; she had found no hint of where he was or what had happened to him.

She stepped away from the basin. Apparently her life mate had not found a need to use his magic since leaving Paranor, which was a good sign. If he were threatened, he would have done so. She had to accept that wherever he was and whatever he was doing, he was not in any particular danger.

That was what she told herself, but not what she believed in her heart.

Her damaged leg aching steadily now, she limped out of the room and made her way back down the stairs to her bedchamber. By the time Arlingfant and Cymrian returned from the tour of the Keep, she was back in bed and there was nothing to say that she had ever left.

In Arishaig, Drust Chazhul paused just inside the entry to his quarters and stared down at the piece of folded white paper lying on the floor.